My Top 5 Strengths plus 3 tips.

12
Mar

Socrates set a high goal for all of us when he said, “Know thyself.”

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to do just that; trying to know myself better.  Over my next few post, I want to share what that journey has looked like for me.

Step 1: Take a test.

Two weeks ago I took a test out of a book called Strength Finder 2.0.

I think the guys that write these test must be experts in flattery.  Or maybe I just like reading stuff that describes me.  I liked all of them except strength 1. It didn’t sit well with me (I’ll explain later) but I agree with the results. And love the book/test.  You should get the book and take the test!

A brief exclamation of each of my strengths:

Achiever

People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.

Focus

People who are especially talented in the Focus theme can take a direction, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track. They prioritize, then act.

Input

People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

Positivity

People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.

Individualization

People who are especially talented in the Individualization theme are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. They have a gift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively.

3 Tips for Improvement

1. Your mind is open and absorbent. You naturally soak up information in the same way that a sponge soaks up water. But just as the primary purpose of the sponge is not to permanently contain what it absorbs, neither should your mind simply store information. Input without output can lead to stagnation. As you gather and absorb information, be aware of the individuals and groups that can most benefit from your knowledge, and be intentional about sharing with them.

2. Deliberately increase your vocabulary. Collect new words, and learn the meaning of each of them.
Identify situations in which you can share the information you have collected with other people. Also make sure to let your friends and colleagues know that you enjoy answering their questions.

3. Your presentations and speaking opportunities will be most engaging when you relate your topic to the experiences of individuals in the audience. Use your Individualization talents to gather and share real-life stories that will make your points much better than would generic information or theories.

They gave me a HUGE list of tips for improvement. Those are just my favorite.

Friday, March 12th, 2010 @ 5:40pm
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Books, Life
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Fear Breads Fear

16
Feb

When I’m reading I like to take pictures of quotes that jump out at me.  Here is one about FEAR:

fear-breads-fear

This is from John Maxwell.

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 @ 6:46am
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Axiom by Bill Hybels: 5 Actionable Learnings

8
Feb

axiom-bill-hybelsLanguage Matters.

Learned:  Your effectiveness as a leader will hinge on something as “inconsequential” as word choice.

Action:  Spend more time developing my vocabulary.

Take Away: John Maxwell speaks and everyone writes it down. Chris Rock says, “One word is going to be the difference in how big your laugh is.” (Nov Sky Magazine pg 62.)  How much time was spent on the line “Real life change happens in the context of relationship”  so that Hunter in my small group would be quoting pastor Chris Hodges.

Thinking that getting the general idea across will be good enough is no longer good enough for me.  If great leaders focus on their words then I will too.

Making the Big Ask.

“Asking is a significant part of Hybels leadership role.” Pg 21

2. Learned:  “The ask” only gets bigger as you grow in ministry.  Focus on growth in this area or your ministry will not grow.  Asking  can build relationships.    If done right, you honor the other person by asking.

2. Action: Use this chapter when talking about the “Big Ask” with church planters.  Be a better asker.

Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team

3. Learned:   Leaders must never expect from others anything more than they’re willing to deliver themselves.   When someone wonders how joyful they should be in their jobs, all they should have to do is observe the leaders level of joy.  If I can’t be joyful then those I lead will not be either.

3. Action:  Like John Maxwell says, “I must first learn to lead myself well.”

Bill Hybels’ Style

4. Learned: These Axioms are  Hybels life experiences.  The book wasn’t some theory “if you do x then y.”  He used stories from his life to show why he leads the ways he does.

4. Action: Use stories when coaching church planters.

Admit Mistakes, and Your Stock Goes Up

5. Learned:  When something goes wrong admit it and take responsibility for it.  Admitting your mistakes says something about your integrity as a leader.  Early on he felt like he had to prove himself. This lead to scrabbling behind the scenes and just made life harder. Now he just shoots straight as soon as he realizes he screwed up.  It shows his confidence as a leader.

5. Action:  Admit when I blow it.

Click here to purchase book.

Monday, February 8th, 2010 @ 9:06am
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Books, Church Planting
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Creating Giant Ripples With Small Rocks- Dino Rizzo

14
Oct

ripple

“1. Small things you do to serve your community can spread through social media.

2. Servant leadership can change your church.

3. Don’t hire someone that doesn’t have a heart to serve”

These were Dino Rizzo’s three points during his break out session at All Access‘09.  All of the pastors at this conference are talking about doing things online to reach people.

Here are a few points that stuck out to me-

Point 1:

16 years = 6000 days

“Healing place has had 16 Christmases & 16 Easters. 16 yr of BIG Events. However, 95% of church time is spent doing the small things. Return emails, write thank you cards, having church, doing hospital visits. These are what make Healing Place what it is today. ”

Point 2.

The power of serving.  “Serving will reach people more effectively than that the big stuff. Serving brings something common to all generations and races. Facebook, twitter [social media] can cut through barriers to get the word out about serving and outreach.”

Reaching the world by serving One – Our Motto.

Every moment, no matter how small, is what  leads to more.   Faithful in the little you get to do more. -Jesus

The Little events are what make your church.

Start with a biblical outreach idea.  “Helping Widows”

She doesn’t need prayer, she needs a Ford truck- They had the idea to move single moms for free

Point 3.

Have you ever done that?

Idea: Marry people for free.  Anyone. Church or not church. Give them free marriage counseling.

Just add value to people!

Dino Rizzo has written a great book on serving call Servolution. Check his book here.

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 @ 5:48pm
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Books, Church Planting, Social Media
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Mark Twain Had It Figured Out

13
Oct

20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. –Mark Twain

sailboat

Don’t disappoint yourself… Do something!

Or you might end up like this…

nonsailboat

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 @ 6:02am
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Deadly Viper Character Assassins

26
Sep

DEADLY VIPER PROMO TRAILER: LONG FORMAT:2 MIN from Deadly Viper on Vimeo.

Here is the official trailer for Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A kung fu survival guide for life and leadership. By Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite

This book is great.  It talks about a revolution of radical integrity and radical grace. You can also get a DVD series and small group studies.


Saturday, September 26th, 2009 @ 8:19am
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Books, Church Planting, Video

How do you treat others?

6
Sep

demotivators_2070_4292240This picture explains how i had been acting before the Holy Spirit convicted me the other day. i>u.  It is so easy to start focusing on i.  The only problem is i am no fun for everyone else to be around.  i will never have any friends if i don’t shift my focus.

Living for others (helping not hurt) is my goal.

Sunday, September 6th, 2009 @ 2:37pm
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Books, Life

Have you added to the blog lately?

1
Sep

John C Maxwell is allowing his blog readers to proof read and add to his book over the next few months. It will be  cool to watch how the book evolves during this process. Here is my first shot at talking about communication {the topic for the new book}. johnmaxwellpost

What do you think?

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 @ 9:59am
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Books, Life
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Can you read 4 books in 20 minutes?

24
Jun

Trouble finding time to read a few books?
green_booksToday I tried something new. I walked into Borders (local book store near Purdue University) and grabbed a lapdesk and the first 5 books that caught my attention.  Then I sat in one of the large leather chairs.

The Goal: Spend 5 min on each book, for a total of 25 min reading.  I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. I didn’t have time to read the whole book or even a whole chapter. There was only enough time to get the big picture.

I had a specific strategy for understanding the main point and finding something that would add value in 5 minutes.  Begin with the last sentence. (30 seconds) Next read the chapter titles.  Find a chapter of whose content is most interesting to you. (30 seconds – 1 minute)  Finally, read that chapter as fast as you can.  Be looking for that one little nugget that you can take with you. TIMES UP!  This process was more helpful than I planned.

What did I learn?

1st book
The Green Book
Not sure why I picked two books on “how to be green.”  Sometimes I like to read things that are just different than my usual.  Two things I walked away with were: Will Ferrel drives an electric car.  He explained why and how it makes him feel (p 33). The next thing that I learned will be helpful to my speech at the BUG Conference. There are 1.6 billion homes in the world.

2nd Deep Survival
Different than I expected, but the author was very creative and painted a picture well.  Sometimes too much. So many adjectives and metaphors, I didn’t know what he was actually saying.

365 Ways to live Green
Their goal is to get you to spread the word about going green. (I know this because page 365 said now that you know, go teach your friends.)  I found a section that would help me as I remodel my new house.  It was titled “How to make your house more green.”  Now I’m thinking about buying energy efficient light bulbs and rethinking the interior decor.

After staying on schedule perfectly, there was 5 minutes left. I saved the best for last.
Field Guide to African Wildlife.
I read about each of the animals I saw in my recent trip to Africa. Skipped all the birds. They just don’t interest me. And even learned about the different types of giraffe.

My take away. I had less than an hour and I learned something. It was time well spent.  Obviously, I had to read fast and do a lot of scanning.  But this technique helped me understand the main point and have something to take away.  I have read a whole book without accomplishing those 2 things.

This process goes fast. It was fun.  I wouldn’t recommend it all the time but next time you have a few minutes to kill in a book store, give it a try.

What time saving ideas do you have?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 @ 10:46pm
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Books, Life, Travel
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Social Networking for Less Clutter Less Noise- Kem Meyer

29
May

Can Social Networking really give you more time?

Kem Meyer is on a blog tour for here book “Less Clutter Less Noise”

My question for Kem:

What would be your social networking advice for a church planter? Assuming he wants that added clutter and noise to his already busy life?

KEM

Glad you asked! And, you are right. At first glance, it seems completely contradictory to my own mantra: Less Clutter. Less Noise. But, in reality, these technologies effectively help me to COMPRESS time, INCREASE my knowledge base, ORGANIZE my thoughts and calendar, ENHANCE my relationships and hold me ACCOUNTABLE. I link them all together, and set preferences to auto-deliver the stuff I need NOW and organize the stuff I’ll reference LATER in categories.

Here are some of my most excellent social-media stories. Depending on the circumstance and objective…I have both close and extended people groups, regular and intermittent interactions, public and private content.

  • Personal/family: I originally started texting and watching MySpace to stay in relationship with my teenager. Now, my 70 year old mother-in-law is texting and on Facebook in an effort to stay connected to her grandkids (and me). We share photos, stories and fun updates. It compresses time; automatically find out most recent news about everyone you care about without having to come back and check for it. Keeps your inbox clean. Instead of hours on the phone with one or two people. Minutes to keep up with everyone. For example, I have 13 neices and nephews. There is no way I can keep up with them all without some robot technology. Thanks to my digital Facebook assistant, I found out today that Luke’s cell phone was run over by a truck. I have something to talk about when I see him at graduation this weekend.
  • Team/staff: Adds value to others. Develop sense of community in spite of pace, location and different schedules. Bonding. Way to get news out when network or email outage. Helps give a voice to introverts.
  • Church/professional: Info posted once, used over and over. Records what’s happening. Puts a face & personality on the ministry. Forced to organize my thoughts and follow-through. People are watching. I’m accountable. Facilitates connectedness and expressiveness. Provides direct access leaders & ministry experts.
  • Other: I get access to training, tutorials, experts, best practices. Micro-leads to macro information. Instant focus groups. I contribute to community development with peers. It’s a way for me to give back & share insights.

There’s no one size fits all approach for the “how to” of this concept. So don’t ask for it. You can’t make a well-informed decision from an explanation; it has to be experienced. The best advice I can give is to try one at a time and see how it fits. But, there are some ways you can get started.

  • Get help: I won’t tell you the how, that’s part of the fun of it. Connect with one of your friends who’s doing it & have them walk you through first steps.
  • One thing at a time: Start slow & don’t overload yourself all at once. It’s something you have to experience to understand. Try to make a judgment from someone else’s experience and you’ll miss it. It’s unique and personal to each person.
  • Watch others for awhile: pick up on their cues of the do’s & don’ts. Find what’s comfortable for you before you start interacting. But, your first step should be to at least GO to the party. If you aren’t ready to participate in the festivities, it’s totally fine to be a wallflower.
  • When you are ready, go ahead & participate, mingle and connect: But, don’t fake it. Remember, it’s a party not a show. Avoid too much information: it may be personal…but it’s not private.

Thanks Kem

Interested in her book? more info

Oh yeah… She sent me a copy for YOU. The first person to comment will get a free copy of her book!  I’ll need your address too.

Friday, May 29th, 2009 @ 3:22pm
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Books, Church Planting, Social Media
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